


Fly away

by accidentallybroken



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, hopefully sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallybroken/pseuds/accidentallybroken
Summary: She wouldn't fall, she'd fly.Happy early birthday.





	Fly away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Take_My_Hand_And_Jump_Into_The_Abyss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Take_My_Hand_And_Jump_Into_The_Abyss/gifts).



> Just thought I'd try something new.

Grandma?"

I walk forward on the creaky floor. Everything in the house is creaky. Old, finicky. Including my grandmother. She was sitting in a chair by the window, her wizened face turned towards the afternoon light, the soft glow blanketing her. She didn't seem to hear me. I looked down at my boots, and then around the room. The bookshelves were covered in books with worn spines, knicknacks she and her late husband had acquired over the years, the furniture the kind from an age where things were made to last. I tried again.

"Grandma?" This time she heard me. She turned toward me, her face glowing with joy. Her hands reached out to me, and I walked forward.

 

"Oh, hello, my boy! I wasn't expecting you to visit me today. What a nice surprise. Yes, what a nice surprise." 

 

She hugged me, her fragile, wrinkled arms barely fitting around my broad frame. I put my arms gently around her, as if afraid to break this dear, gentle grandmother of mine. 

 

She clasped my hands in her old, dry ones. 

 

"How is school? Are you at the top of your class?" 

 

She seemed to forget that school was out for the summer, so I just replied, "Yes, ma'am."

 

"Good. You're a good boy. Hard working, just like your mother. And so handsome, too. You have Alfred's nose, you know." 

 

"Grandpa?" She almost never talked about him, though when she did, her face filled with a love that I could only hope to find someday.

 

"Oh, yes. A most handsome man. An old soul, even when he was young. I'll see him again soon."

 

"Grandma, you know Grandpa is..." My voice trailed off, afraid to upset her. She smiled at my hesitation, laugh lines crinkling around her eyes.

 

"Yes, he's dead, I know. I'll see him again, nonetheless. Soon, I'll fly away, just like him, and we'll be together." 

 

She almost never talked like this. She was normally very with it. My mother was a woman of science, someone who taught me to stay in the real world. Normally, Grandma was too.

 

"Fly away?..."

 

She smiled again. "Oh, yes. Soon, I'll fly away on these wings of mine." She gripped my hand tighter. "Can you see them? Can you see my wings?"

 

I looked at her lined, gentle face, her cloudy but bright eyes, her shrunken frame, and I told her I could.

 

When my dad told me, just a week later, that she'd passed away after a bad fall, I knew he was wrong. After all, she wouldn't fall, she would fly.


End file.
